Fire in Apache Peak area near Idyllwild

Here's the Idyllwild fire as seen from my home in Palm Springs. It's a 15 second exposure.

Tokyo Park

The good people at the Tokyo park system say: "The park is (the) living room in the city."

Above please find a picture of one of Tokyo's lovely parks.

High ISO Speeds

Here's yet another abandoned house from my abandoned home collection. This photo was taken at sunset. Don't you just love the color of the home (robin's egg blue).

I took this photo at 1000 ISO, that is at a film speed where you can get clear photos in limited light.

Many point-and-shoot cameras are coming with ISO controls. They tout it too, advertising that they have films speeds of up to 3200 ISO.

What they don't tell you is at that film speed, you're going to get tons of noise. Noise happens when you get those tiny multicolored dots in your image. You can really see it if you blow up your photos to full size on your monitor.

To see your photographs at full size, all you do is type in 100 in the bottom left of the window.

By looking at your photos in this way, you'll see all the little aberrations that appear when you print out copies of them.

At any rate about the highest film speed you can go is about 1000 in order to not get much noise.

Some cameras are better than others at not having noise at high ISO speeds. Canon really does a good job. When you take a picture at high ISO speeds with one of their dSLR cameras you get hardly any noise whatsoever, like in this photo above.

Chairs

Getting near that time of year, when you can sit for hours and pass the time doing nothing.

Where I am (in Palm Springs, CA) this is the last time you'll be able to sit outside during the day for awhile cause in a few weeks it's gonna get hot.

In May we get above a hundred toward the later end of the month. In June it can climb to 105 degrees F. In July and Aug, the average high can run up to 111 with days when it's 122.

No kidding!

Is This a Mobile Home?

Nothing really gets my goat than writing about mobile homes. There's so much stereotyping about who lives in them and why?

If you're going to say "there's no place like my mobile home" you might as well be in Palm Springs, CA, home to some of the most extravagant mobile homes in the world.

Take a look at the mobile home in the picture above. It's gorgeous. It's not what you'd think a mobile home would look like. (Usually one thinks of a mobile home as a long trailer made of cheap materials.)

If anyone wants to give me a good advance for a book about the mobile homes of Palm Springs, I'll take it and photograph and comment on all of the beautiful mobile homes that the city has to offer.

Convertable

This old car whipped around me as I was photographing in San Francisco last week.

I'm working on a new book, but can't divulge the title now.

As far as the picture is concerned, I can't figure out if I like the hazy light that covers the frame.

It was just before dusk when I photographed this car with a strong sun that was setting, sending blazing yellow light everywhere.

During postprocessing, I tried to clear up the haze, but when I did the photography just didn't look right.

So here it is just as I shot it.

El Portal Theater in North Hollywood

El Portal Theatre is a historic landmark in the San Fernando Valley city of North Hollywood. The theater was originally built as a vaudeville house in 1926, The theater has featured Vaudeville acts, silent movies, and then film

The theater was divided into three theaters when it was rebuilt in the late 90's. It hosts performers like Debbie Reynolds (who is coming there in July) and stage plays like the Wonderettes, which I happen to see and found very entertaining.

The Art Deco marquee has the traditional curved, colored neon lines that were popular during that era. The symmetry of the artful patters was terrific back then.

LA Skyline of Two Lakes

This picture that I took from a plane baffles me. What are those two bodies of water? Could they be Lake Matthews and Lake Elsinore?

Someone help please...

Photographing Sculpture

The moment you step onto the grounds of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, you're awed by the sculpture on the front lawn.

Photographing a piece of sculpture requires that you hone in as close as possible so that even light is spread over the piece of art, picking up the details. This is especially true if the sun is behind the sculpture. If you photograph the sculpture when the sun is behind it and you include the background, which will be much brighter than the sculpture itself, you'll lose most of the detail on its surface.

If you get lucky enough to have the sun shining on the sculpture, you should lower your exposure compensation a bit to prevent white out. Under these circumstances you'll have the sun behind you (shining on the face of the sculpture), thus creating a bright blue sky behind it.

The Perfect Hour

See that beautiful sky in the background. That's the sky of the perfect hour, the time about 20 minutes after the sun's gone down till the time the sky turns black. It's during that time that the sky moves to shades of midnight blue.

It's the perfect hour for photography.

Japanese Dancing in San Francisco

San Francisco's weather has been mighty fine these past few days. Sunny skies and warm temperatures brought out hundreds of people to Japantown for the Cherry Blossom Festival. The festival continues tomorrow and next weekend.

There's a flower arrangement show at the Kubuki Hotel. The arrangements are stunning.

The dances went at it too on the stage at Peace Plaza (near Filmore and Geary).

The highlight of the day was the children performing traditional Japanese dances.

Wonderettes

The Wonderettes are playing North Hollywood. North Hollywood will never be the same. The show, which ends April 27, is a gas. It tells the story of a couple of gals who go to high school together in the 1950s and reunite in the 1960s.

The show is a medley of 50s and 60s songs strung together to unite each unique character in love and happiness.

To be sure there are a few bumps in their relationships on the way, but, hey, you know, girls will be girls.

The performance that I went to had a bevy of children dressed in 50s attire, a feat that their parents put together very well.

The sign for the play stands in beautiful downtown North Hollywood, the fledging theater capital of L.A.

Julie Andrews' New Book

I find it awkward writing about Julie Andrews because her name brings forth my youth.

Since last week her name comes up over and over again--

*I visited Grauman's Chinese Theatre last week and took the picture above.
*Last night I went to the bookstore and a zillion copies of her new memoir, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years appeared at the front of the store.
*I just realized that her role of governess in the 60s had her moving from family to family--from the Banks of Mary Poppins to the Von Traps of the Sound of Music.

Her image of wholesomeness litters my head as spoons full of sugar and hills that are alive.

The first thing I did when I saw the book in the store was turn to the picture plates (there are two plates of images in the book).

I was madly disappointed in what I saw! Very young Julie Andrews didn't look like Julie Andrews. From the freckles on her face on the front cover, to her curly hairdo in the pictures, Julie didn't live up to the looks that we know she presents today, which look strikingly like they did 40 years ago when she was in her early 20s.

I find comfort, though, that my thoughts are calmed when I think about starting things at the beginning, which is a very nice place to start. In knowing this I find a perfect cure for procrastination.

Paris Ferris Wheel

Amusement park rides such as the Ferris wheel are great subjects for long exposures, but part of an amusement park ride such as the one you see above shows construction detail.

I like taking pictures of pieces of things because it gets me thinking about how much work it takes to make things. Take the Ferris wheel, for example, like a bridge, it takes years to construct one.

Thinking about construction lets me know that life is complex as the things we make symbolize our lives.

Bowl, Obama, Bowl

Pennsylvania last week wasn't good to Obama. He scored only 37 when bowling in an effort to be just one of the guys.

He should of shot some hoops.

At any rate, this is a sign for a bowling alley in Santa Monica. Cool sign and one that I'm sure I'll sell many of.

Maybe Obama will see that I'm the photographer who sells bowling alley signs. I'd give him a deal if he'd buy it.

Depth of Field

The depth of field in photography is the part of an image that's in focus. It varies with the aperture (size of lens opening). If you have the focal length and aperture of the lens you're using and the distance to your subject as well as the size of your sensor, you can calculate an approximate depth of field.

In the picture above I can use the following values for the image above to calculate the depth of field:

camera sensor focal multiplier effect=1.6X
aperture=F5.6
focal length=77mm
focus distance to subject=15m

In the photograph above the depth of field is calculated to be nearly infinite, which, as you can see, is the case. The image appears clear through the background.

Toast

I have to say my favorite food is toast. The crispy bread with melted butter and jam on it makes it to my every meal (well, almost).

The word toast comes from the Latin word tostum, which means burn.

The toast in the picture above comes to us from a display window in Santa Monica, CA. I don't know what they are advertising here, but it sure is catchy.

Do you out there have any ideas what a wall of toast would relate to?

Opera Singer

While this image is only a snapshot, it shows a lot, therefore putting it in a class by itself. It's candid photography, which, according to me, doesn't have to be technically perfect. (Yes, I know there's a shadow under her chin.)

This image is good because you can identify what this women does by the picture. She's an opera singer. You can kind of just tell by her outfit (a shoulderless dress) and by the expression on her face (she's singing).

The amazing thing about this candid shot is that she's performing while walking around an art gallery--no music, no chorus to help here along.

She's on her own.

Zapcar

Is it a truck? A motorcycle? Does it need gas? Well the answers are no, no and no.

It's a Zapcar, the batteries provide 6.7 horsepower. The car travels 25 miles on one charge and can go up to 40 mph.

It's not the car you'd want for expressway driving, but for humming around town it looks like a gas.

This Zapcar was spotted in Santa Monica, CA.